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Skateboard Sense
As well as (later often justifiably criticised) educational films on safe driving, drug use and homosexuality, American filmmaker Sidney Davis also made a safety video about skateboarding. Here, fortunately, he leaves behind his exaggerated, fear-mongering rhetoric from the 1950s: Skateboard Sense warns of the ‘dangers’ of skateboarding in a light-hearted manner.
The film offers a basic guide for the novice skater: regularly check the bolts on your wheels, find a spot with few people around, and learn to fall correctly. The most important thing, of course, is a helmet, but don’t forget your knee and elbow pads either. Skateboard Sense illustrates, in an almost slapstick manner, what happens if you don’t follow these rules.
Bio Sidney Davis
A former Hollywood stand-in for John Wayne, Sid(ney) Davis made educational, cautionary films such as Girls Beware (1961) and Boys Beware (1961). In the 1950s and 1960s, Davis tackled ‘social-hygiene’ subjects most educational filmmakers considered taboo at the time: sex, drugs, and alcohol. He made over 150 films.
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